West African social movements ‘against the high cost of living

From the Economic to the Political, From the Global to the National

Bibliographic Data

ID8092697
AuthorsBénédicte Maccatory (University of Liège, corresponding author), Makama Bawa Oumarou (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Marc Poncelet (University of Liège)
Year2010
Volume37
Issue125
Publication date2010-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of African Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-6244 • E-ISSN: 1740-1720
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03056244.2010.510631
OpenAlexW1972042008
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited8

The globalisation of the market for basic consumer goods, speculation, and the success of biofuels production all underlie a recent return to the international agenda of the issues of food security, food sovereignty and the right to food. In 2008, the ‘high cost of living’ phenomenon sparked off numerous collective, urban, African protests movements: these challenged and took the governments in power by surprise, impelling them to react in different ways. This article describes and analyses the social movements brought into being by activist organisations (including unions, human rights organisations, and consumer associations) in two countries, Niger and Burkina Faso, and demonstrates how important it is to situate the movements in local temporalities and circumstances. One of the main issues highlighted by the findings of the research is the importance of local governance issues: the measures taken in relation to the price rises were aimed more at the symptoms than at the underlying causes, and had only short-term effects. The different temporalities of world events hence played a very minor role, despite the connection of a number of the actors, especially in Niger, to the international sphere via anti-globalisation movements

Corporate governance · Development economics · Disinvestment · Economics · Globalization · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social movement · Sociology · Speculation · Surprise · Temporalities · African Studies and Ethnography · Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Law

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